Comparing two major 20th-century movements for reform, John Salmond explores parallels between the fight of white textile workers for economic justice and the pursuit of racial equality by black southerners. He argues that their separate efforts illustrate the dark underside of Southern history - the failure of class to override race in the struggle for political, industrial, and social democracy. Salmond maintains that white workers in southern mills in the 1930s and 1940s shared common goals with black activists in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He identifies similar leadership styles, sources of motivation, and strategies of protest. For both groups, he says, church leaders and religious imagery offered inspiration, and women achieved critical leadership roles, especially at local levels, that have been long ignored. Tragically, both movements were strongly opposed by vigilantism and organized community violence. "Those who challenged the social order did so at the daily risk of their lives," he writes. Whether white or black, these determined to bring about change faced equally determined resistance to change from the upwardly mobile white middle class.

Other adaptation by: John David Smith
Foreword by: John David Smith